"This succession plan will involve a nationwide search for a senior executive who will join our team, learn our systems, our values and our community, and become the lead candidate for chief executive officer upon my retirement," Elrod wrote. "As we embark on that process, I am counting on your valuable input and will be soliciting your views."

The timeline for finding Elrod's replacement is undetermined, a spokesman said.

"I reflect with pride on the accomplishments which have been made and with humility on the extraordinary staff and medical professionals I was fortunate to work with to achieve them," Daigle said in a statement provided Thursday by the law firm Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson. "It was a team effort."

Also from Daigle's statement: "The environment of medicine and health care is presently in great flux. I sought to meet these demands of change. Unfortunately, change is always difficult to achieve within a large institution. Change, however, was and remains necessary."

Daigle's resignation or firing had been expected since he was among the executive leadership members that Willis-Knighton's Medical Executive Committee supported in their statement of "no confidence" in Elrod.

But the Willis-Knighton Board of Trustees voted last week to keep Elrod, 80, in place and give him the authority to determine Daigle's future.

The group of rebel doctors had suggested Elrod was fractious and resistant to change and that his leadership was hurting the system's bottom line.

"There has also been a lot of misinformation circulating, and I’d like to clear up some issues," Elrod wrote in his letter. "First, debate and disagreement is healthy when it is honest and respectful. It means that people feel strongly about the importance of our healthcare system and its role in our community."

Elrod wrote that he respects the doctors, nurses, health care workers and caregivers who do much to enhance the lives of others.

"We all believe in the same mission – doing what is best and right for our patients and our community," Elrod wrote.

Elrod wrote that he is proud of what has been accomplished during his years at Willis-Knighton.

"But I, too, am focused on our future in the ever-changing healthcare services world. Therefore, in order to ensure a seamless and orderly leadership transition in the coming years, the Board of Trustees and I are determined to continue development of a succession plan."

Elrod came to Willis-Knighton 52 years ago and turned an 80-bed hospital into an empire, the Willis-Knighton Health System.

The original hospital has been joined by three satellite hospitals, a regional physician network of 350 employed physicians, a hospital-owned HMO and the state’s largest retirement community, The Oaks of Louisiana.

Willis-Knighton is northwestern Louisiana's largest private employer with about 7,200 employees.

But the system announced layoffs in late September that it blamed on the state inadequately funding the Medicaid expansion. Fifty-five employees were laid off with another 177 jobs to be eliminated through attrition.

And Willis-Knighton has been embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit filed against it by BRF, the operator of the state's safety net hospitals University Health in Shreveport and University Health Conway in Monroe.

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1